Dr. Wintermute from "Splendours and Glooms" by Laura Amy Schlitz

I just finished Splendours and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz. It's a fantastic book! So this is my second illustration inspired by a book I've been reading - I want to try and keep this up with anything I read that I really enjoy.

Initially, I had planned to draw the two main characaters, Lizzie Rose and Parsefall. They are great characters; in fact, all of the characters are well done, even the villains. Any one of them would make a good illustration, but for some reason Dr. Wintermute spoke to me. I even knew what I was going to draw for the other two and his character took over my imagination instead. Maybe it's because he's a father and I am as well, but, whatever the reason, I felt like drawing his picture.

Back to the book - I highly recommend it! #SplendoursAndGlooms #LauraAmySchlitz

Bridget Bishop

Starting a new thing here - I've decided that whenever I read a book, I ought to illustrate something from it. I just finished "Witchcraft at Salem" by Chadwick Hansen, which I picked ip in the Salem Witch Museum bookstore. After reading it, I was inspired to do this portrait of Bridget Bishop.

And Halloween coming up as well wasn't a bad incentive either.

According to Hansen, there were a lot of innocent people executed in the Salem witch craze, but Bridget Bishop was not one of them. Totally a witch, willing to use image magic to get back at people she didn't like. And creepy enough to freak people out enough to believe her curses actually worked. So a good first choice for my drawing project, especially in October.

As for the book, I can't recommend it highly enough. Aside from being really informative, it's just so well written that it was a joy to read.

On a completely unrelated note, I think "Chadwick Hansen" is the best name ever. Had I known about this book earlier, I may have named my son "Chadwick Hansen Valentino." I told my son about this. He said if I had, he would have always harbored some resentment towards me as long as he lived. So probably for the best that this is a recent find.

Dorothy and Toto(ro) in Oz

I was teaching character design in my art class, and used descriptions from the Wizard of Oz for inspiration. One of the students accidentally thought Dorothy's dog was named Totoro. I told her it was Toto, but thought, "I. Must. Draw. This."

Fishing

I based this drawing on a sketch I did while camping (same camping trip that I came up with the Hobbit Day idea. Did a lot of sketching that weekend!).

One evening we went down to the lake to go fishing, me with sketchbook in tow as well as tackle. At first, my daughter tried fishing. Then, she tried skipping rocks. THEN, she decided it was more fun to just take big rocks and hurl them into the water.

Surprisingly, we caught no fish that night.

Hobbit Day 2015

We all went camping, and one night before bed my wife checked her phone to see what the weather would be like the next day. When she woke up, she couldn't find the phone. She was looking around the sleeping bag saying, 'Where is it? Where IS it?" so insistently that I imagined her following with, "Nasty theiving Hobbitses!"

So I drew the first draft of this cartoon in my sketchbook sitting around the campfire that morning.

It probably helped that the kids watched The Fellowship of the Ring in the car on the way to the campsite!

Happy Hobbit Day everyone!

Map of Midgard

Another illustration for The Making of Middle Earth - a map of the world as the Vikings saw it. The author wanted to show where Tolkien got the concept of "Middle Earth" as the name for the world.

This started out as just a sketch, that I kept building on until this point, and it ended up getting used in the book!

Coincidentally, there's been a lot of Norse mythology around the house lately - the kids saw the movie Thor and wanted to know more about him. I had to explain that this is based on a comic book and not actual mythology, so then they wanted to know the real stories. So for their bedtime stories I've told them about Tyr (or Tiu, that Tuesday is named after), and now we're in the middle of how Thor got his hammer from the dwarfs. The Midgard Serpent shows up in the Tyr story - now that I think about it, I should show them this map too, it might help them get it!

Threadless contest - please vote!

Threadless is having a T-shirt contest for Monsters Inc. and Disney. This is my entry - if you like it, please go to http://beta.threadless.com/monstersinc/boo-23/ and vote. You'll have to sign up, if you haven't voted on Threadless before, but there's some really great art there so it's worth it just to browse. Any votes you could send my way would be greatly appreciated - thanks!

11

An 11th anniversary card I drew for my wife.

The Jungle Explorers - the book

I finished this book a while ago, and always wanted to put the whole thing up. And now I can! The blog won't let me post a multiple-page PDF, but another site, called Dribbble, will. Here is the book in its entirety! Just click on the attachment below the picture.

Leprechaun

A cover illustration for the program of a Saint Patrick's Day auction.

Work in Progress: the Gingerbread Thark

Another fairy-tale inspired piece of art, but this time with Edgar Rice Burroughs thrown in as well. What with John Carter coming out in theaters, I thought I'd put this up today instead of waiting to finish the whole piece.

Tharks are 4-armed green men from Burroughs' Martian series (and the best part about the movie being made. While I hope like the movie is good, as long as I see these guys big screen I'll be happy). They're horrible creatures that consider cruelty the height of hilarity, but are awfully fun to read about in their cheesy pulp-fiction form.

They're so warlike and hyper-violent, that somehow I wondered what Martian fairy tales would be like (don't ask, I don't remember what prompted that connection either). Then my free-associating brain came up with the Gingerbread Thark. No "run run run" for him - Tharks don't run from anything. Ultimately he will go on to conquer the bakers, along with everyone else, and establish himself as king. If this were a real fairy tale, that is, but at least it's fun to draw.

Up next are the bakers that he's attacking, along with some text. And taking it into PhotoShop for some texture. But in the meantime - hey, Andrew Stanton, if you need a movie tie-in for the kids too little to see the movie, I got some Martian fairy tales for ya...

Valentine's Day 2012

A picture of me singing is infinitely preferable to me actually singing.

The Jungle Explorers - 3

The next page – just a couple of the evil King's cronies.

Solar Compactor Graphic

Whenever I walk around downtown, I always see BigBelly Solar Trash Compactors. They're a really great idea - they smush the trash and use their own energy to do it. The only thing that bugs me about them is the graphic on the sides, which looks like this:


Intellectually, I know that the cut-out is supposed to show the difference between the shirt and the pants. But even so, I can't help seeing it like this:


Maybe it's just me.

My Daughter's First Monster King (snif)

Another one from my daughter's story. And I'm proud that she felt the need to include a Monster King, and even that she made it her own by calling him the "King of the Monsters." I've had two Monster Kings on this blog already, so I'm happy to see her keeping up the family tradition! I... I promised myself I wouldn't cry...

Some of the king's cronies can also be seen on the Dribbble post. They'll be showing up in later pages.

The Jungle Explorers - 2

The first page of my daughter's book. I'm planning on doing all the pages like this - bright, flat colors, to make the characters pop.

When I started, I thought I would have all this wrapped up in a week. It seems she's quite the writer - to do it justice, there will be pages and pages of illustrations. Maybe I should encourage her to write haiku.

Medusa

'Nother mythology pic.

Athena

Here's a sample screen I did for a hypothetical educational game. The first one is the artwork alone, and the second is how it would look with the questions.

The Jungle Explorers - 1

These are drawings that I'm doing for a story written by my 4-year old. Yes, 4. And writing probably isn't the right word; I was the scribe on this one. But she made it all up.

I had initially intended to illustrate a story I had written for her (it's about time for me to start on the kids' Christmas book, after all). But I was so taken with what she made up that I had to do this one first.

Part of this is also posted on dribbble.com - they like it when people re-link to them, so as more of these go up I'll put links to there as well.

You'll notice that the squirrels and acorns are happy together. My daughter seems to think that the two of them are friends. I don't have the heart to tell her it's more of a one-way relationship.

Birthday Card

Or rather, e-card, since I put this up on the screen for my wife to see when she opened the computer.

We went on a cruise this summer, and it was great. So great, in fact, that we all wish we were back on it. While I couldn't do that, at least I could draw it!